September 2006

This month is always dominated by the Natural Horse Gathering (find out more here!). This year we were blessed with great weather but the gate sales were down, mostly due to my lack of attention during the peak promotion time of June-August, however, it was a great day for all who attended and, with the support and exposure given by the web TV company, Country Matters, who spent the day with us, we plan to be back on track next year.

We were blessed with the arrival of Gerhart & Andy, two Austrian students who wanted to get away from their desks and do something physical. They set to digging out and re-laying the foundations of an old barn in the back yard. They did a bigger and better job that I would have expected, but the cows will be deeply appreciative of somewhere dry to stand and it will make the whole job of cleaning the back yard much easier. Next job is digging a soak away to drain the yard... it feels like a race against the seasons now!

With our new found breathing space on the financial front, we set about creating sales targets and really getting to grips with what we need in order to make the money side of life work here. I'm one who generally will over-estimate costs and under-estimate expenses, so I was rather shaken by the fact that we missed the September goal by quite a bit. Shaken and stirred, I'm quite determined that this should work and now have my thinking cap on as to what we can do to generate more sales. To that end, we have planned a "Sausage Sizzle" on 15th October. We'll set up the marquee we've been given, cook sausages (surprise, surprise!!), and invite our customers to join us for a tasting and farm walk. As I spend all day on Thursday in the cutting room, it would seem like a good time to invite anyone wanting to buy produce to focus their efforts on coming on that day too... so we'll launch that as well. Then there's the possibility of a meat box scheme... and deliveries... and some outside catering... suggestions welcomed!

On the back of this, we met Mark, a butcher (I can see this might become confusing). He sold himself to us and the employment of his services will mean we can hang the beef here and he will cut it to order. So we have now jumped through the necessary hoops to get the licence to cut our own beef animals on the farm. Because our cattle are over 24 months when they are slaughtered, their spine appears to have been identified as being radioactive... well, not exactly, but a source of potential contamination from BSE (if the animal was infected - which ours aren't)... so anyone cutting animals over 24 months now needs a licence with special facilities for storing and disposing of this part of the animal. Well, that's sorted now and I hope Mark's help, enthusiasm and expertise will a) free some of my time and b) help us in our upward business trend.

A bit of a damper was put on this enthusiasm on my arrival at Marlborough Farmers Market on the last Sunday of the month. No umbrella's, no generator and a couple of bemused producers. It turns out that the powers that be (in this case Wiltshire Farmers Market's Association) have now cancelled this market, but didn't think to tell us! Although the market has been dwindling both in producers and customers over the last 12 months, we are rather disgruntled, particularly as we'd talked about it amongst ourselves a few months previously to keep the market going until Christmas, not least so we could let our customers know that we were closing down and give them opportunity to get our contact details should they wish to continue purchasing from us. If you are one of the Marlborough customers affected by this, I apologise and would be very happy to hear from you if you would like to place an order.

On a brighter note, the last batches of chicks for this year hatched and we have a rogue in our midst! A little black chick in the middle of the usual yellow ones. We've named him Andy, after the postman (you can ask Lorraine about this if you really want to know why!).